Sharing the Shenny Sauce
by JustMyLuckiness
Summary: "Thanks for rescuing me. Mild was getting on my nerves." After Leonard made a big show of getting Penny mildly hot sauce for her burrito, she reflected on how that was an apt analogy for how she'd settled for 'good enough' her whole life. Noticing her malaise, Sheldon offered her a sauce with a little extra kick.


**We're calling out to all the Shenny fans and writers. We cordially invite you to participate in the Shenny Ships fun one-shot story share we've named Sharing the Shenny Sauce. We want all Shenny fans to come together in our shared ship. If you're willing to join, here are the rules: **

**Search for Taco Bell Sauce Sayings and choose the one you like most. **

**Place the title of your story as "Sharing the Shenny Sauce" and place your phrase in the summary and underneath the Author's Note Describing the rules (like so). **

**Your story must be a one-shot between 500 and 1500 words (Not including author notes)**

**Your story may be of any genre or rating (yes…ANY rating *wink*wink*)**

**It MUST be a Shenny story. **

**Deadline is the end of March. **

**Let your creative juices flow and start writing!**

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**Phrase: **Thanks for rescuing me. Mild was getting on my nerves.

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It was 'Anything Can Happen Thursday' and Penny was getting fed up with his antics. The guys had decided to get Mexican food for once, and excited for the variety (and didn't THAT just say enough about her current life?) she eagerly joined. About an hour in, she was seriously regretting not just going for a damn pizza.

It was a common enough state of being for her since moving into the apartment on Los Robles, but usually her frustrations revolved around the craziness of Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, certified Whack-a-Doodle. His mother may not have gotten him confirmed crazy, but there were days when Penny wondered...

Regardless, the source of her current frustration was not the six feet of gangly Texan but his roommate sitting in the easy chair kitty-corner to Sheldon's 'spot'. Raj and Howard were content to sit back with their own quesadillas, tacos, and other assorted food choices to watch the drama unfold. Leonard hadn't listened to anyone's warnings when he bragged about getting Penny's dinner tonight, sure that just a little more effort would get her to give them yet another try.

Leonard Hofstadter, Penny's one-time boyfriend, and quite possibly her biggest mistake other than Kurt, was fresh off his latest failure with Priya. He'd taken to giving her his wounded-puppy expression whenever he made eye contact, as if he were trying to score a pity relationship. She shook her head to clear it of that pathetic image. She'd both given and received pity sex before, but a pity relationship was something only Leonard and his own insecurities, foibles, and general limp dishrag personality could call a life ambition.

He was nice enough, she reflected around another bite of her burrito. The problem with that was that she could never remember hearing at any time on her childhood that she should strive to find "Mr. Nice Enough". All the fairy tales, Disney cartoons, and inspirational books that made up the force-fed feel-good emotional diet of a 21st century American student told her to aim for the heavens; that she deserved the very best. The nearly-flavorless sauce made her grimace around the food - Leonard said when he got back with everyone's order that he got her their mildest sauce so it wouldn't cause her any heartburn later.

He was nice enough, but he was absolutely not the very best she could find. Needy and insecure, he was obviously trying as hard as he could to land the prom queen before the music stopped and he was left without a chair in the great dating game.

It wasn't just Leonard and dating, either. Lately she'd been settling for everything, it seemed. Crappy car? Check. Dead-end job? Check. Safe boyfriend who failed to inspire her in any way, shape, or form? Triple-check. She'd even stopped going to auditions. Stopped taking chances. Stopped aiming for the heavens.

Penny took another bite of her burrito and noticed how bland the food was. She'd never been one whose taste buds shrank from a little heat. Lately she'd even begun trying spicier dishes in what she realized at that particular moment was a misguided attempt to feel something. She frowned and looked up from her food to see Leonard's pleading stare. If she took her eyes out of focus, he looked almost like Puss-N-Boots from the Shrek movies. You know, before he went all Terminator on the palace guards.

At the same moment, Sheldon caught her eye.

Sheldon Lee Cooper.

Never before had she had a friendship with someone who challenged, infuriated, inflamed, or entertained her so. He was an enigma wrapped in double t-shirts. In one moment he would talk down to her - but who didn't he talk down to when it came to intellectual matters? A voice in her head always seemed to reply when she started listing his negative traits - and the next he would compliment her ingenuity with Penny Blossoms, or get over his fears of both human contact and driving to rescue her naked broken ass from the shower and take her to the emergency room (the hero always peeks my tattooed ass, she thought with an internal grin - he just wanted an eyeful to go with his handful - but somehow the thought of Sheldon ogling her naked body didn't inspire the revulsion it would had it been Howard or the guilt it did when it was Leonard), or asking her to take care of him when he was sick because she was the only one he trusted. Sheldon had somehow become her best friend - and if she were honest, the subject of more than one fantasy spent with her battery-operated boyfriend. Tall, lean, and possessed of fingers she'd seen operate a video game control with such dexterity that it had heat pooling low in her abdomen, Sheldon was a dangerous weapon even before she looked up into piercing blue eyes.

Uh-oh, Penny thought, unwillingly torn from her memories of his long, strong fingers on her supple flesh.

Standing at the fridge, he was gazing at her with concern, but something in his expression told her it wasn't concern for himself, but for her.

"Penny?" he asked as he turned back to the appliance.

"Yeah, Sheldon?" she replied, jerking back to her disappointing reality and contemplating another bland, flavorless bite.

"Would you care for a different hot sauce on your burrito?" he held out a bottle with a flaming red design. "I took the liberty of purchasing a hotter hot sauce after I noticed you complaining about the lack of flavor the last time we had Mexican food."

Touched at how Sheldon had gone out of his way to make something better for her - and not a little bit at how he somehow knew what she was thinking that very evening - she flashed her most brilliant smile and got up from the couch.

In an instant, Leonard's plaintive expression turned jealous and stormy. Penny got to her feet and took her burrito over to Sheldon, holding it out for him to apply as much hot sauce as he wanted. "Thank you for rescuing me, sweetie," she said after lightly kissing his cheek, "that mild sauce was getting really irritating."

"Hold on just a minute, missy," Leonard exclaimed, "I bought this especially for you because I thought you'd enjoy it! Now you're telling me that tall, dark, and geeky offers you a little spice and you jump right over?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it," she responded with a cheeky grin.

Pursing his lips, Leonard made a decision and got to his feet. He strode over to the fridge, yanked the hot sauce away from Sheldon, saying "Gimme," and squirted it all over his food. "Anything you can handle, I can handle."

Penny and Sheldon watched as Leonard took a gigantic bite with defiance brimming from every pore. After chewing for a couple seconds, his expression faltered. Leonard's eyes grew huge as the pain started to burn his entire mouth. He flailed around, looking for a way to quench the fire starting to burn his esophagus, but found no milk – Penny having filched the last of it for her morning coffee.

To everyone's surprise, Sheldon started shaking his head. When he spoke, it was with a thick Texan twang. "You're no daisy. You're no daisy at all."

After Leonard gave up and collapsed to the floor, twitching in pain, Sheldon continued, "Poor soul, you were just too highly strung." He turned to Penny with a sardonic grin. "I'm afraid the strain was more than he could bear."

Eyes wide, Penny stepped over the prone Leonard and got right into Sheldon's face. "Don't you coitus with me, Doctor Sheldon Lee Cooper," she warned, "You know how I feel about Val Kilmer in that movie. If you start talking like that, I can't be responsible for my actions. I might drag you to your bedroom and make sure your pajama rotation gets thrown off."

Sheldon considered her statement for a moment before reaching out and tucking a strand of her hair behind her ears. "It's true, you are a good woman," he replied, "Then again, you may be the antichrist."

Raj and Howard, completely forgotten on the couch, watched in varying degrees of shock and amusement as Penny squeaked, grabbed Sheldon's t-shirt, and tried to stick her tongue down his throat. Fully expecting him to flip out and throw her out for good before gargling with an entire bottle of Listerine, they were stunned to see him not only respond to the kiss, but follow her willingly back to his room.

"What the frak was that?" Howard wondered.

"I don't know, dude, but after hearing Val Kilmer come out of that mouth, I'm never going up against Doc Cooper in Halo again," Raj said, shaking his own head.

After a glance at the still-unconscious Leonard, they shrugged and finished their dinners.

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**A/N: Well there it is. Just barely under the 1500 word deadline and one of the shortest stories I've ever written. I always promised myself I'd never use a shipper name, but for this joint effort, I guess I sort of had to, right? **

**Yeah, this one was a little on the nose, but it's what came to me. **

**Of course I don't claim ownership of the show, characters, settings, or the movie Tombstone or anything related to that. All in fun. **

**Hope you enjoyed! **


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